Sunday, May 27, 2018

Staunton, May 27 – There is no such brand
as “French wines,” “Czech beer,” or “Italian meat products,” Fyodor
Krasheninnikov says. Instead, the brands in each case are based on regions
within those countries.But Moscow,
given its centralist myopia, has never been willing to allow the emergence of internationally
attractive regional brands.

“Anyone with even the slightest interest
in brands” knows that there are wines from various regions of France, beers from
various parts of the Czech Republic, and meats from various sections of Italy
and that it is these regional variations that attract customers around the
world, Krasheninnikov says.

Unfortunately, the powers that be in
Moscow don’t understand this or why promoting such brands would be a good idea
because they are trapped in the view that “in our united Russia … any attempts
to distinguish oneself even in a purely symbolic fashion can end with criminal
charges.”

This is the first problem those who would like
to promote regionally based brands in Russia face. The second arises from it:
history and continuity.Regional brands grow
out of regional identities. People travel to Bourdeaux for wines, but it is
hard to imagine them travelling to Bashkortostan for honey.

It might be possible for present-day
Kaliningrad “to create a powerful brand as the chief beer-brewing region of
Russia because in the heads of millions of Russians lives the mythology of ‘German
beer.’”But “’Visit the city named for
M.I. Kalinin’ and ‘Visit ancient Koenigsberg’ are two very different
invitations.”

Moreover, Krasheninnikov continues, “between
‘the beer of East Prussia’ and ‘the beer of Kaliningrad oblast’ lies a gap in
meaning which will not be filled by billions of rubles.”Indeed, today, there is no Tilsit cheese
being produced in Kaliningrad because there is no Tilsit; there is only
Sovetskoye.

This is just “a typical example of
why in Russia it is impossible to revive even well-known product brands let
alone speak about new ones.”

But it is not just a question of names: Vologda might
have been able to produce remarkable butter if it had been able to escape the
destruction of collectivization but of course that wasn’t possible,
Krasheninnikov says. After the homogenization that Soviet policy produced, it
is hard to revive a sense of regional distinctiveness.

And
these two problems lead to a third, “the most important,” the commentator says.
And that is this: “for a product to become an international brand, it must be
really unique and high quality, it must have its own long history of quality
and popularity” in the region where it is produced.

“Before
parmesan cheese, Parma ham, or port wine became patented as brands, they already
were popular, in demand and actively supported… Regional specialities of Italy
or France first achieved unqualified success in their own internal markets and
then advanced to the global level.”

Russia
has brands but not the kind of local brands that have won success for other
countries.“Our enormous country,”
Krasheninnikov says, “must learn to be diverse, must permit local markets to develop
in various ways so that in various regions will appear really unique local
brands.”

“Under conditions of total unification
nothing will emerge,” he continues.Soviet
brands, produced in “thousands of faceless factories will never become any
brands” of the kinds that have worked for others.